


This Time Around

by idrilhadhafang



Series: The Last Jedi AU -- Poe Recaptured [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, my personal canon at least, the last jedi speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 14:58:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12061329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: In which Poe is captured by the First Order. Again.





	This Time Around

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Captain 
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

  
When Poe's captured, he has to at least appreciate the irony in the fact that he's captured the same way he was last time around (sort of) -- the fact that his ship was destroyed. The First Order has been relentless in terms of destroying the base on Crait; they're determined that now that the Resistance has effectively found Luke, they'll be damned if they're going to reach him in time.   
  
He's brought to the Finalizer, and before Kylo Ren, and it's different this time around knowing that his husband's underneath that mask. Before, it would have been okay just to snark, just to hate him for killing Lor San Tekka.   
  
Now...now things are more complicated, and he knows that he has to get Kylo Ren home. He came all this way the first time around in order to find Ben. He'll be damned if he fails now.  
  
They don't go to the prison block this time around. If the stormtroopers raise any eyebrows underneath their helmets when Ren decides to make that choice, Poe doesn't notice. They definitely don't say anything. Poe wonders what other ridiculous requests that Ren -- Ben, he reminds himself -- has made that they've just acquiesced to.   
  
It's in Ben's chambers that they actually get to talk. It's one of those rooms that gives Poe the creeps just being inside it; it's not a terribly ornate room. It's just about all black, and is that Vader's mask on one of the tables, or is Poe just hallucinating? The room's dark enough for him to start hallucinating, he'll say that much.   
  
"Pyre robbing now a regular hobby of yours?" he says.   
  
"Well," Ben says, "It deserved a better fate than being left to burn. Especially by a man like Skywalker."  
  
"So you put it in your quarters like some sort of trophy." Poe can't say he knows what to say to that.  
  
Ben dodges the question pretty well, all things considered. "I heard you were made Captain after Starkiller," he says. "Congratulations."   
  
Poe doesn't know a good retort to that. If it had been a complete stranger, he probably would have said, _I heard you got your cargo hold soundly kicked by that girl Rey_ , but in the end, he can't say that he gets any satisfaction out of it. There's too much mixed feelings between the two for it to just be straight up hate. Love and hate are just two sides of the same credit chip, aren't they? This is no exception. For all Poe hates what Ben did to him, there's a part of him that can still remember their history.  
  
He does know that he doesn't like Ben complimenting him. It's just plain creepy now. It would have been welcome once upon a time, an echo of when Ben once said that he thought that Poe would be the one of the best pilots in the Republic, but it's not welcome now. It's creepy, it's disturbing, it's wrong, it's --  
  
"Do you truly find me that repulsive?" Ben says.  
  
"How am I supposed to react?" Poe finally says. "After..." He breaks off. _After what you did to me,_ is the unspoken finisher to that sentence.   
  
Ben's voice grows softer. "Despite what you believe, the interrogations give me no pleasure," he says. "This was no exception."   
  
"But you still did it."  
  
"Finding Skywalker was my top priority."  
  
"Even over..." _Over me,_ Poe thinks. Then again, how can he think otherwise? Ben's a part of the First Order now. Everything he does, he does for them.   
  
"No. Not even over you."   
  
It should be satisfying. Instead, Poe only feels more lost than ever.   
  
Ben continues. "After the interrogation, there would have been something else that I wanted from you."  
  
"What?" Poe already has a feeling that he's not going to like this. Not in the slightest.  
  
"Skywalker was cruel enough to separate us."  
  
"You were the one who left!"  
  
"I intended to come back," Ben says, in a way that suggests that he's trying to explain it in terms that Poe will understand. "Skywalker defeated me. He separated me from you. For six years we've been separated." A hand trails over Poe's cheek. "But no longer."  
  
 _Is he kidding himself?_ is what anyone would say in this situation. And yet Poe feels a certain pull towards Ben despite himself. He's being offered what he looked for so long on a silver platter, and he'd be foolish to accept it, foolish to not --  
  
He forces himself to look away even as tears prick his eyes. "I can't, Ben," he says. "I'm sorry."  
  
"Is this what the Resistance told you?" Ben says. "Or what you believe?"  
  
"I can't. I've seen what you did to Tekka, what you did to that village on Tuanul, I've experienced firsthand what you were willing to do to me. I saw what you did to Crait, and what you did to Takodana. All those things are on your hands. Even the Hosnian system...maybe Hux was the one to pull the trigger, but you didn't stop him. You didn't say anything. The Resistance isn't a group of brainwashers like Snoke's likely told you; they're taking a stand against what you're doing because they _have_ to. That's what you have to do. You've got to take a stand, you've got to say no..." Poe trails off. "You've got to stand up to them because no one else wanted to."   
  
"A lovely speech. I can only assume you've practiced it before you slept at night?"  
  
"It's the truth."   
  
"You _let_ the Resistance tell you what is truth and what is not."  
  
"And what's the alternative? The First Order?"   
  
Silence.  
  
"Come with me, Ben," Poe says. "You don't have to do this anymore."  
  
He swears that Ben's voice shakes even as he says, "It's too late."  
  
"It's never too late. Finn...a friend of mine...he left the First Order in time. He was saved. You can be too."   
  
He doesn't know if it's worked. But even as they slip into bed for the night -- and it's something that Poe hasn't felt in a long time, that sort of company, the warmth of Ben's body near his own. He just wishes it were in better circumstances. -- Poe can only hope that his word has left its mark somehow.


End file.
